Some son I was.
The old nurse, Lana, behind the station, glanced up as I approached, giving me that same pitying grin she always did.
“Here to see your mom?” The same asinine question she asked each time I came up here. I just nodded sharply and stalked past.
It had been a long time since I’d been up here. With Harlow’s arrival, things had been stirring. My half-breed status didn’t exactly give the demons a reason to clue me in on their plans. As far as I knew, there weren’t any others around like me, which only made me stand out more. I was a reject among demons and an outcast to the humans. Then again, a person who fed on desolation deserved nothing less.
“Drake?” my mother called out before I’d even opened the door. She always had a way of knowing when I was close. Or maybe I was just the only one who ever walked these halls outside of the nurses.
“Hello, Ma,” I said as I pushed open her cracked door. She was in her chair by the window, knees tucked in close as she stared out at the grounds below. At just forty-eight, she looked frail. If she weighed even a hundred pounds, I’d be shocked. Her cheeks were sunken, long brunette hair limp and mousy, and her once pretty green eyes were dull. Dark Haven had taken her life from her and with it her beauty.
“Your father came by,” she said quietly. Keeping my composure wasn’t easy but, somehow, I simply nodded, taking a seat next to her.
“What did he want?” My voice was sharper than I meant it to be, but she simply smiled sadly at my question. Her age was showing more now, faded from years of life lived in a box. Despite the fact I hated it, I knew she belonged here. Anywhere else would pump her full of medication for her ramblings on demons. She’d be diagnosed with schizophrenia despite her simply struggling with crippling obsessive compulsive disorder. Even as we spoke she was tapping out a rhythm on her leg, eyes darting around anxiously.
“Oh, nothing. He offered to take me away again,” she explained. “I’m too old for him now.”
“Demons are timeless, Ma,” I said gently. The demon who claimed her had taken a liking to her, offering her things that I doubted she could make it through, like eternal life in Helheim. I’d never been there, but I knew of it, and a living human wouldn’t survive there. Hell, I wasn’t even sure that I could as a half-breed.
“And I’m not,” she said in an oddly harsh voice. Generally, she spoke at barely over a whisper, as if talking at a normal volume was too tiring.
If I had a way to save her from this version of hell, to give her demon blood and allow him to take her there, I would do it. But I had no real standing with Hel, or any god for that matter. I was lower than the lowest form of being in their eyes. I’d spoken to the queen of Helheim twice in my life. Once when she told me I shouldn’t leave Dark Haven when I had planned to run away, and once when I stopped feeding. It was unsettling to know she was watching me, monitoring what I did, but oddly reassuring at the same time. And she’d saved my life that day.
Feeding like the demons was something I couldn’t fucking stand. These people suffered enough without being subjected to living their worst nightmares every fucking night. They were like a succubus, but instead of lust, it was any strong emotion. And the patients here had plenty of those to go around.
“He asked about you.”
It was a lie. The way her hands wrung told me she was ‘trying to do the right thing’ again. But that demon cared nothing about me, just like the others.
They could all fuck off.
I wasn’t less than them, I was more, a survivor in and outside of these walls. A wave of despair hit me, and I looked up to see a tear track down her cheek. My demon side stirred, hungry and willing to drink it down. She was always lonely and sad here, which was why I didn’t visit often. Feeding on her, even involuntarily, was fucking sick.
It always felt strange, wrong, or maybe that was just what I thought of the demons.
Of myself.
“You should leave here,” she told me after a long pause of silence. She didn’t mean her room, she meant Dark Haven. But I was tied to this place, I’d never lived anywhere else. Plus, I had to feed. Not as often as the other demons, but still. It was my reality, and even if I’d accepted it, I loathed it as well.
“That’s not an option for me.” My words were blunt and full of honesty, but I still winced as a sob tore from her. I hated to see her sad, but I could barely focus on it as I held my demon back. She wasn’t a meal, she was my mother.
“It’s my fault. I doomed you to this place,” she choked out. “Raised in these halls... it was no place for a child.”
“My childhood wasn’t so bad, Ma,” I promised. It was a lie. Seeing her ups and downs so vividly with no escape was hard, having Vane intertwined in every aspect of our lives was even worse. I didn’t like the way he ran things, the way he used these people, the way he never seemed to age or change. He may not be a demon, but making a deal with them made him as close as a human could be. His soul was tainted, Hel’s magic giving him power and influence he couldn’t achieve on his own, but at the end of the day, he would die easier than I would. And I’d dreamed of killing him with my bare hands more than once. Anyone who made their living out of taking advantage of the weak deserved to feel double the pain they’d caused. I’d seen the looks in the patients’ eyes when they left his sessions, I didn’t know what went on, but I knew it was nothing good.
“You’re on fire, dear.” My mother’s voice was full of concern, but I had to breathe a few times before I could reassure her. Blue flames licked out of my hands, and I squeezed them into tight fists to put out the flames. I tried not to let her see me like that. It would only make her feel more guilty.
Someday I would actually have to call the flames, to master them, but it made me feel more like a demon than ever, and I wasn’t ready to face that reality yet. I was a master at avoidance if nothing else.
Her fingers tapped the chair. One. Two. Three. Pause. One, two, three, pause. Over and over. It was a familiar sound, nostalgic, and it did the trick. I glanced back at her and smiled; she didn’t mind if it was fake.
“I’m fine, everything is alright,” I promised as I always did. “But now I have to go, I have classes.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “My smart boy, going to college now.” She waved me off as they started to fall, and I left the room, knowing damn well I wasn’t the person to soothe her. And tears generally led to sadness and then my demon side would draw it out and feed.
Not fucking happening.
Pushing open the door, I rushed from the room. I would have slammed into Vane if not for him steadying me. The feel of his hands on me had rage flaring and I jerked away. He didn’t react to my string of curses or the angry step away.